A Through Z
by Gelana
Summary: Alphabetically prompted snippets of 155 words in length. Waxing poetic with the Bateses. Enjoy.
1. Arc

Fingers trace a soft arc over her thigh. Spent muscles spasm and twitch. The paths of his touches are as long as the shadows cast against the wall.

He makes love to her differently in the daylight. No more or less intimately, just differently. Maybe it is she who is different - burning from the trail of his gaze, their passions laid bare in the milky light of the sun, freeing her in some ways, holding her thrall to her inhibitions in others.

In the dark she feels the expanse of him, lives in awe of the hidden reality they create between each other; a realm of raw, wet sensation, of salt and sweat, trust and whispered cries. In the dark she closes her eyes.

In the daylight she is greedy; endlessly drinking in the turns and corners of his body, the dark, private hair that washes down his torso. By day her eyes are open.


	2. Bloom

Blood bloomed in the syringe, those many years ago. A vein found, morphine administered. He had sighed into it, let go, floated along in a fog of dulled pain and softened sounds of suffering.

Sometimes in dreams, waking or slumbering he sees it still. Hears it. The guns. The shouting. Deafening booms of mortar fire. Remembers agony afterwards.

Now it is not the bloom of blood that marks his coming comfort but the beacon of her face, shining up at him in the weak light of dawn or the flickering cast of the lamp. It is the soft slip of her body tucked to him throughout the darkest and coldest part of the night. She is the peace he never thought he would find. She is everything he never knew he needed.

She knew, though.

She sowed seeds into his heart-soil, and tended them with a secret smile, until they burst forth and bloomed.


	3. Crimson

Her chest flushes crimson, her ears a rich rose, and her cheeks darken as she finds her rhythm with him. Her nipples, pale carnation buds, stand taut against his palms. Her parted lips are a bruised shade of raspberry and hang close enough to his that she and he share one-another's breath.

The bones of her corset cut red lines in the pale flesh of her torso, but by the time she is riding out their bliss the marks have faded somewhat. She lets her head loll to the side and he watches the wet red petals of her mouth form silent syllables. And when she pulses around him the pink of her sex darkens from the inside of a seashell to the rich coral of sunset. Roughly and in a tone colored with desperation, her whispers form the shape of his name. Over and over again she paints him with pleasure sounds.


	4. Delicate

He had the most delicate touch. He could ignite her with the barest drawing of his finger over her skin. With her, his demeanor softened no matter where they were. But when they were alone, in their cottage, his walls came down. He was open and playful, sentimental and passionate. He shocked her with how free he was with her.

Before.

Everything was before and after.

They were hesitant and cautious. It took time for them to open properly to one other. They'd always be rebuilding, it seemed. Over three years and a short stay in the women's wing later, they were still learning the new rules. His touch was still delicate. He could still ignite her, though she wasn't sure if she'd ever feel safe. The truth of it was her safety was secondary to his. Too often he touched her like she was delicate, but she'd grown strong.


	5. Endure

"It's funny how what we endure isn't always written on our bodies. It can become how we mark time."

She had said it to him after she was out, after he was back from Ireland. Times in her life became while she was waiting, while he was gone with Vera, while he was falsely imprisoned, after what happened, when she was pushing him away, when they pulled her away and she herself was falsely imprisoned. The absurdity of it; the vulgarity.

She is strong. She says it, he says it. It was scrawled across so many different notes, from so many different souls at the Abbey, while she was a number. (She refuses to write that number down, to say it out loud; she won't be a number again). Her mettle has been forged since she was small, by what she has endured, by one blow after another, and the occasional plunge in cold water.


	6. Frantic

She fumbles everything in her delight, though even _that_ is shadowed through with the fear that he'll be gone when she looks back at him, like some Dickensian ghost. The note to Mrs. Hughes is written, nearly illegibly, conveying the bare minimum.

She is grateful that it is wet and December-cold, because that (and her concern for his knee in such weather) is the only thing that keeps her from pulling him behind a tree as soon as the Abbey falls out of earshot.

Instead she waits until the cottage door is closed and locked and then she is on him. They tangle and trip into the darkness. Buttons scatter. She is slick with want when she finally takes him roughly on the stairs, skirts hiked, knickers frantically tugged aside. She can't imagine anything beyond the blinding feel of him inside of her body. She tastes him like copper on her tongue.


	7. Growl

Their sounds delight her; noises made when they are lost in one another, unbidden gasps and hisses, sighs, groans, and the full, open-throated laughter that flows after they have collapsed against each-other, unhinged and sated, slightly sheepish in the scope of their passion. She savors his melodic rasp, humming and rich, his rhythmic grunts, and the strangled cries that seep from the back of his throat. The timbre of his voice is like the grain of wood, textured and rippled beneath its oiled sheen. And when he is within her, it drops to a leonine purr or lifts like a boy's, earnest and hopeful.

Nothing tells of the ancient wildness that rises and swells between them better than the rough edged nonsense words that fill the air. There is meaning carved deep in the breaths there, growled and whispered into an infinite abyss, and nothing she won't do to evoke it.


	8. Harbor

She has always been his home. She resonates like a horn in cold morning air. He knew long before he admitted it to himself; felt it hewn into his bones. He is invisibly anchored to her, has been from the moment they met. He resisted; convinced himself of the impossibility. She set out a string of buoys, guided him in. She ignored his protests.

"You're overthinking things," she said once in a hush against his lips. "I'm yours and you are mine. That is all there is to it."

It was she who lay all the ground work; she who drove pilings and poured herself into their foundation, she who insisted in the rightness of what they both felt. He tried to dissuade her until he couldn't anymore, because he couldn't dissuade himself. She held him fast in her moorings. He has learned with her he can shelter through any storm.


	9. Inkwell

The morning after, they are languid and bundled, loathe to leave their bed. She does though, brash and giggling, her naked skin puckers againer cold morning air.

Not so cold - he has lit a fire.

She pulls the most recent stack from her drawer; letters she will not need to hand over to their employer.

"Did His Lordship get you the others?"

"He did," her husband says quietly, closing his eyes. "You can't know the comfort they brought me."

"Not more worry? I was in quite a state writing the first half dozen." She settles back under blankets, pulls his arm around her. Tilts her head to accept a kiss. "I used your old inkwell. They are mostly just silly things: Mrs. Patmore's lamb stew, or the mud I cleaned from Lady Mary's riding breeches."

"Those are my favorite parts; they tell me you are safe and warm, fed and looked after."


	10. Jewel

She has never been one to concern herself with trinkets and baubles. She enjoys the loveliness that her hands pass over when she readies Lady Mary, to be sure. But she has also understood from the time she was young that it is not her lot in life to have such things of beauty. No, she has no real desire for jeweled hair combs, long strands of pearls, or glittering rings.

He is the only jewel her heart desires. He is a thing of beauty, her lovely diamond in the rough, with his honorable ways, his soft words, his quiet touches, his gentle demeanor. The sparkle of his eyes as he looks at her is glitter enough for two lifetimes. The shining fob of his watch the only gold chain she could ever want to toy with in quiet moments. The simple band, gleaming around her ring finger is the all the jewelry she needs.


	11. Key

She has been keyed up and ravenous since his return. She tucks in at meals, takes seconds — thirds even — of Mrs. Patmore's stews and pies. He watches her out of the corner of his eye when he thinks she isn't looking, pleased.

It's more than food she is hungry for. She hurries them home after the upstairs is put to bed, tugs his arm, fumbles the key in the door, is nearly naked when they reach the top of the stairs. She has done it enough times that he gently teases her. She laughs and means it. Doesn't tell him it's the only time she truly trusts he is real - when he's inside of her.

He unlocked her cell-door with his false confession, and now with his return, he unlocks all she has closed off, heart and body, wakes her from her long hibernation. She is beginning to believe that he is home safe.


	12. Lapping

"I want to begin looking at hotels," Anna murmurs in his ear one day in early February. "Not tomorrow but soon - in March. To see what is available and what we can afford. I want to test the waters."

"Why now?"

"It has been on my mind lately." She nips his jaw. "And the thought of it won't leave me. I have always thought it would be nice to live near the coast. Unless the damp would be bad for your knee."

He feels the tip of her tongue trail his throat, groans when she slides a leg over him, yoking him to the bed with her thighs.

"I enjoyed the seaside," she sighs. "It was lovely. How must it be to fall asleep to waves lapping the shore?"

"I'll speak to his Lordship, if you'll see to securing Lady Mary's permission."

"Do you mean it?"

His heart overflows at her smile.

"Of course."


	13. Moonbeams

Mornings are more difficult than usual. She sleeps like the dead, but only after the witching-hour. She can't help waking throughout the night, stiff and still, panicked, expecting an empty bed.

Instead she finds him, sleeping solemn and peaceful, occasionally snoring. When the moon is full, she parts curtains, stokes the fire and watches him, chin on her knees.

There was a time when it was painful to look at him this intimately — awash in moonbeams and firelight — when she felt so soiled she wasn't sure how she'd survive.

She thinks of those times and smiles. She survives because she has reason to, because she is stubborn and stronger than all of it — stronger even than he thinks she is.

Every so often she wakes to him watching her, roused by his own demons. She reaches for him and reminds him that they are more than the sum of their parts.


	14. Naive

She was never naive. Not even as a child.

It equal parts annoyed her and amused her how often people thought so.

People looked at her and saw only wide blue eyes, a slip of a woman, underestimating her at every turn. Lady Mary is perhaps the only one who has never sold her short.

When they first found one another, he thought her innocent. It took him years to understand that she knew wholeheartedly what she offered up to him. She knew her mind, her heart, and the import of her reputation.

It was he who was naive, world weary though he was. He had no idea how far she would go or how much she would sacrifice to see him well, happy, and cared for. He had no idea what it was to love someone so much you would risk your whole world to keep them safe. He knows now, they both do.


	15. Ornament

She loves him when he is smoothed and shorn. When his watch fob shines. He always keeps his cane polished to gleaming. His waistcoat crisp, buttons polished. His bowler hat immaculate. He cuts a distinguished figure, her husband, beautiful in his finery.

She loves him the most when he is disheveled and rough. When stubble shadows his face, sleep pulls at his eyelids. In the winter, with a shirt and the summer without. Their peace is shadowed; she is still only out on bail. She can't shake her fear, but is determined to cherish whatever time they have together.

She has missed his voice, thick with slumber, missed the way he hooks his arm around her waist, pulls her flush to him and hums into her hair. He is everything to her in those moments, stripped down, hair mussed, a contented smile on his face. She loves when he is himself unadulterated and without ornament.


	16. Predictions

She teases the line of his torso, pale skin that edges the dark hair of his chest and belly. She has stopped trying to predict the flow and course of the future. In that moment, she has him. She had hopes, but she has begun to let go of them because month after month of blood would discourage anyone. Then the last few years. Who could have ever predicted all of that? She tried to let go of the feeling that she was being punished. When she was sat, alone and silent in an empty house, it proved nearly impossible. But with him beneath her fingertips, inside her mouth, all heat and sweat, and trembling, it is simple. She gave herself up long ago, knows how dangerous it is to love him with everything she is. It means she was lost when he went away. Now he has come for her and she is alive.


	17. Quiet

He is used to silence, has always been a man of few words.

The quiet of the cottage was deafening without her. It was cold and empty without her laughter, her humming while she tidied or boiled water for tea. All he could think about was the sough of her breath, the rustle of her skirts in the short corridors. The sound of the brush passing through her hair.

He was haunted by the sounds of prison in her absence. He cringed when he thought of them hammering her ears. The clang of doors, shouts, shrieks, metal on metal, coldness. He wondered if she would ever be warm while she was there.

The quiet he returns to is welcoming, laced with soft sighs, the beat of her heart. It almost hides the darker silences, the things that gnaw at her. Things she won't mention. Even in the stillest part of the night he hears them.


	18. Reverent

He bows his head piously at church.

She does too, though she doesn't know what to believe. She is learning to stop looking for answers.

She believes in him - not in his words, though he means his promises with the entirety of his heart. It's just that the moon can't be given, and nothing is certain. She believes in the warmth of his gloved hand in believes in the reverent way he holds her. She believes in his unwavering faith in her.

For now they are together, enjoying their tentative freedom, forever finding their footing, moving at dusk and dawn. Blending into the background in the light of day is an art.

She asks him what he was thinking at services. (She learned long ago that he doesn't pray.)

He smiles the devilish smile that is only for her.

"How I was planning on doing my own bit of worshipping later."


	19. Solace

She can't claim her sleep is stolen by the sound of his snores, though they are stuttering, sonorous. No. Now she seeks the solitude of the wee hours, feels safety in skulking about, pensive while he slumbers. She sits some nights near the sill, shivering, staring at silent stars, sweeping the tail of her plait over her skin. She spends others in the soft sanctuary of the fire's circle, counting sparks as they sear the darkness, secure in the knowledge that he can't see her, can't sense the way her wishes sifted — spoiled and shapeless — like sand through her fingers. Safety is a shadow that slips away from her the closer to it she steps. Experience has sown a subtle sourness into her sense of hope. She wonders if it will slough away from her entirely. Until she hears him shift and snort, for the swell of his snoring soothes her.


	20. Tempests

She feels broken — though she'll not admit it — and weathered away. The attack, then prison, then the threat of it all linger like the early April storms they wade through each day to and from the Abbey. It has felt like penance for a long time, that walk. She has changed, but his love for her hasn't. She understands better now how his eyes would cloud over, go distant after his release. Bless him, her husband. He has been ever-fixed, her North Star in the wandering dark, even when he was away. He'd never know his true worth to her, and her measured words fell short. She is no fool, she won't have forever with him. The hours and weeks with out him ticked on - time harvested forever. She tracks through the tempest, knows all of it's moot, she'll bear it out even to the edge of doom.


	21. Umbilical

It happened at least twice since his return. There may have been other times. She was late with her cycle every now and then, but only once before her prison stay did the weeks stretch long enough for her to hope. When her blood came, it was with horrible cramping. He could tell something was wrong but not what and that alone made her want to weep. Anna was loathe to keep anything from him, it seemed like omissions and half-truths hung like veils in the air between them these days. Still, with this? Why tell him, when it would only bring him more sorrow? She kept count of the children she couldn't carry. Why should he be burdened with more grief?

Even if they were tethered together at the hip, at the heart, connected with an invisible cord - one that nothing could sever — she was failing him one cycle at a time.


End file.
